The World According to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith A 44 Scotland Street Novel (4)

The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother.

There is never a quiet moment on 44 Scotland Street. In The World According to Bertie, Pat deals with the reappearance of Bruce, which has her heart skipping—and not in a pleasant way. Angus Lordie's dog Cyril has been taken away by the authorities, accused of being a serial biter. Unexpectedly, Domenica has offered to help free him. As usual, Big Lou is still looking for love, and handing out coffee and advice to the always contemplative Matthew. And Bertie, the beleaguered Italian-speaking six year old prodigy, now has a little brother, Ulysses, who Bertie hopes will help distract his pushy mother Irene.

Beautifully observed, cleverly detailed, The World According to Bertie is classic McCall Smith and a treat for his avid fans as well as his first time readers.

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served with many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. www.alexandermccallsmith.com

Unrated Critic Reviews for The World According to Bertie

Kirkus Reviews

The return of art student Pat’s narcissistic former flatmate Bruce from London to Edinburgh tempts Pat to fall for him once more—a situation, as she sagely realizes, that’s “precisely the sort of thing that novelists liked to write about.” Not this novelist, however: Bruce insinuates himself into...

Publishers Weekly

This time out, he focuses mostly on the irrepressible Bertie Pollock, a precocious six-year-old whose mummy, Irene, forces him to play a saxophone, converse in Italian, do yoga and see Dr. Hugo Fairbairn, a psychotherapist who looks a lot like Bertie's baby brother, Ulysses.

Publishers Weekly

In this latest installment of McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series, Robert Ian Mackenzie portrays Bertie as the overly intelligent and articulate six-year-old that he is meant to be, but when Bertie is among his classmates Tofu, Hiawatha, Larch and Olive, Mackenzie is hard-pressed to individu...

RT Book Reviews

Entertainment Weekly

Alexander McCall Smith writes faster than most people read, which is good news for the legions of fans who rarely have to go more than a few months without a new fix of his gentle but powerfully addicting fiction.

ReviewAtlas.com

The latest book by Alexander McCall Smith continues the adventures (if ordinary life counts as adventure, however much life seems to be an adventure to the individuals concerned) of the residents of 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh.